Mandalas are beautiful, hypnotic and magical circles, but they also symbolize the spiritual. The word Mandala comes from Sanskrit and means “sacred circle”. It was the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung who, attracted by them, began to use them as a therapeutic tool to promote self-awareness. “the mandala It is a way of opening the doors to the interior of yourself. and your inner wisdom, provides you with a refuge where you feel safe from the external world full of stress and confusion and gives you a sense of peace and calm,” Jung wrote.
“In this society in which people live with demands and where they try to fill the gaps with consumerism, stopping to paint, giving shape and color to a mandala, helps to channel stress. And when the stress leaves you, it loses strength. The simple fact of painting or modeling a mandala brings the mind to a neutral state in which the person is absorbed in a vacuum in which everything is possible. At some point we realized that painting mandalas made us feel better, both the adults and the little ones in the house”, says Anna Freijomil, an art therapist dedicated to Mandalatherapy for years.
Concentrate attention and take our mind auA state similar to that which meditation leads us to It is the first form of manda healing, a state in which thoughts are stilled and with it also emotions, which affects the body.
It favors personal self-observation and helps to combat anxiety and fear in a natural way.
“Our mind in general tends to go from one thought to another. We tend to maintain a constant internal dialogue that does not usually leave room for silence, so necessary to calm down, reflect and make good decisions. That is why painting the “mental silence” that appears while we color the mandala is healing. If, in addition, you carry out this task with the help of an art-therapist, that can help you understand the origin of stress and your lack of peace and understand things about yourself”, he points out. Anna Freijomil.
“I began to use it as a psychological therapy in the seventies when I realized that by the mere fact of delimiting the patient a white and circular space in which he deposited all the words or drawings that came to mind, it facilitated me. interpret their moods and emotional and physical problems. In a simple and creative way, I could see what was in his unconscious”, says Ahimsalara Ribera, author of the book Healing with Mandalas (Ed. Edaf).
in his book Healing with Mandalas offers different techniques and exercises to deepen knowledge of oneself through the mandalas. One of them is to make a mandala based on a question related to the personal issue that you want to solve or see more clearly. “I believe that focusing attention on a specific question and reflecting on it while creating a mandala already makes us delimit the space of where and how the answer is going to be given”, he explains.
How you have painted it can be revealing
The way to fill a mandala and the tones used to color them speak of the mood from each person.
When coloring mandalas there are two ways to do it: inside out, which means that it is necessary to externalize emotions, and vice versa, which means that we seek balance and go deep within. The choice of more geometric drawings is also related to people who need more order. On the other hand, the colors that are used speak of the mood of each person.
The Tibetan, Hindu, Celtic or American mandalas help us relax, but then there are those that each one designs with the idea of deepening one’s self-knowledge”, says Ahimsalara Ribera, author of Sanction with Mandalas. Ribera proposes choose colors with eyes closed and that once we have finished the mandala, spend some time observing it with an introspective look, what it evokes in us, what shapes predominate, what colors are repeated… Put it into practice in the mandalas that we propose below. 8 What can you learn from it?
Some therapists attribute meaning to each color used in the mandala. “From my methodology, not only does each color have a specific function, but also the place where that color is placed in the mandala has a meaning. So; in some cases –depending on what we seek to modify– it is more advisable to use primary tones (red, yellow and blue); in other cases, the secondary colors (green orange and violet); or the tertiary ones, which are the sum of two colors plus a third”, says Ribera. Some of the possible meanings associated with each color, although this varies depending on their experiences and their imagination:
- WHITE: Symbol of emptiness, purity and illumination
- BLACK: Mystery, limitation and blockage.
- GREY: Renewal, neutrality and wisdom.
- RED: Vitality, passion, sensuality and fertility.
- BLUE: Helps to relax and induces calm, spiritual, satisfaction and joy.
- GREEN: Associated with healing, with a calming effect. It is related to the sensory, nature, balance and hope.
- YELLOW: Sun, light and receptivity. It is related to the intellect and that is why they say that it is useful for work environments, as it stimulates creativity.
- ORANGE: Provides vitality and energy. It expresses tenderness, courage, warmth and joy.
- PURPLE: Love of neighbor, idealism and wisdom. • PINK: Femininity, altruism and sweetness
The origin of the mandala
“In Egypt and China, mandalas were placed inside certain places to change their energy, This is how the idea that the mandala is a healing element comes to our days, meditative and balancing”, says Ahimsalara Ribera, author of the book Healing with Mandalas (Ed. Edaf).
This type of circular structure that mandalas are, with a repetitive and fractal composition, is also closely linked to the ceremonies of the Tibetan region. as a healing ritual and instrument of mystical contemplation. “And it is that everything that is and is represented within this circle is sacralized, protected and strengthened,” adds Anna Freijomil, an art therapist dedicated to Mandalatherapy for years.
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